The Buddha said that suffering was being sick and aged and death.....those aren't suffering, they are just natural events in our lives.....

Real suffering is what humans do to other humans....if you want to endthe suffering of people, be kind to human beings....follow the pathof love instead of hate and anger...suffering, real suffering is causedby humans acting on other humans.....be the person who helps end suffering...

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

as I wrote, the Buddha felt that we must escape sufferingand that suffering was growing old and being sick and dying...but these things are normal and expected.... how can they besuffering if everyone becomes sick or grows old or dies? I have been sick, I needed three operations to heal, did I suffer? hell yah, the pain was overwhelming at times, but I, eventually,became healthy...but that kind of suffering is part and parcel of the human experience...... I suffer from pain from a bad back and have foryears and will suffer until the day I die... and yet, I realize it is what it is....and as for growing old, I am 58 and I grow older every single day and yetit is what it is and nothing I can do will stop that process... I just considerit being part of the price of being alive and as for death, I have no choice, no freedomin the matter, so how can that be suffering? I will die...... it doesn't matter how I feel about the matter, I will die..I just don't know when......

all of these are natural occurring event in life we all go through... it iswhat it is and that there is nothing I can do about it. period. end of discussion....why lament that which I have no control over... I cannot control that "suffering" even if it isn't really suffering, it is just part of the gig of being human....deal with it.....

but what about the suffering of millions who don't have the necessities of life?while some have billions of dollars, in fact the top 10 wealthiest peopleon planet earth have as much wealth as the bottom half of the population orhave as much wealth as 3 billion people....... how is that just? how is that equality? by having the economic system we have, we have billions, BILLIONS, of people who lack the basic necessities of life......they are suffering, not from age or sickness or death,but from the actions of their fellow human beings.....

Justice demands that we treat people equally but if we don't do that due to economic reasons, we are engaged in injustice... a society cannot last engaging in injustice....it becomes unbalanced, unstable, it becomes threatened..... so where is the justicefor those who suffer from lack of resources? if all men are created equal, then we need justice, equality, for everyone regardless of their politics or their religion ortheir race or their color.... equality is the answer for suffering.... you want to endsuffering.... end injustice, end inequality....to follow the Buddha and end suffering,you must end the suffering of our fellow human beings.... who suffer under a unequalpolitical and economic system......every single reformer since before Jesus has hadthe same message....to heal thyself... one must begin by healing those who suffer....because their suffering is your suffering because we humans...... we are of that universal classification.... HUMAN BEING......we are one and the same....individually and collectively.....we have an economic system that demands suffering asa price for our couch and our TV and our nice car and house.... we can go with lessand end the suffering for others..... equality..... is justice for all.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I am reading a book called: History of Philosophical Systems...it is edited by Ferm... Published in 1965....a group of writers write about various Philosophical systems from the earliest times, it begins with the "Story of Indian Philosophy" and works it way through various systems up to recent events like Pragmatismand Logical Positivism and into recent events in Philosophy, well recent asof 1965......

I thought about our American system and what is in that system...

we have a representative democracy and we have capitalism as our economic systemand we have three distinct and equal branches of government and we have as our basisa equal justice system, whereas the symbol is the women wearing blindfold andusing a scale which means she judges blindly and without discrimination or benefitto anyone.......this is our American system writ large and not getting into the weedswith all the other stuff that our system will entail.....

now our system like any other system must be balanced, to work it mustbe equal and fair and honest... the failure of our American system lies in thefact that it has introduced chaos and uncertainty into our system and withinthat chaos lies the means to threaten our American system....

think of our political system like the solar system... it works smoothlyand easily until something throw the system into chaos like for example,let us say a planet comes into our solar system or a nearby sun has somegravitational influence on our system that would throw our solar system intochaos and make it unbalanced and threaten its equilibrium....

we have caused chaos and unbalanced into our system with rulings likehobby lobby and citizens united and thus we have a system that is out of balanced and we have justice that is no longer blind but she sees exactlywhich people are on trial and money talks and justice walks.....

we have threaten the system in large part by our own actions and it is by our own actions we must save our system.....when politicians make millions of dollars from campaign contributionsand then get a small salary from American's, who do you think the politicians will listen to....the millions of dollars or the citizenswho put them there... there is no doubt who the politicians listento and answer to and it ain't their constituents, that's for sure....

the bottom line seems to be money and there where the danger of,and the threat comes from, money influencing and changing the dynamics of justice and the dynamics of democracy.......

money makes the blindfolded lady see and makes justice becomesa system of money, justice is simply the person with the most money,and thus threatens the balance of the American system.......

justice is no longer equal and justice is no longer practicedfrom a position of blindness.......

want to know how America is being threaten, it is money thathas unbalanced the American system

this morning it was reported that a homeless man asked a womanto move her Porsche... and she shot him.....how much you want to bet shegets off scott free...better then even money, she doesn't spend a day in jail.....andthat is the new American justice system...money talks and justice walks.....you want to rail against something, try this inside of dumb discussions ofliberals and their alleged hatred of America.... you want to fix America,help fix the systems that have become corrupt and unbalanced, thus threating American stability....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

most people approach philosophy with such seriousness that is entirely unwarranted....

becoming who you are, isn't about drama and seriousnessthat drains all the life out of the process...

Nietzsche was right, we can dance and laugh and cry on the path to becoming....

Philosophy isn't about a set series of exercises like studying the verb "to be" in another language....

I amyou arehe/she/it iswe are you are they are

Ich bindu bister/sie/es istwir sindihr seid sie/Sie sind...

philosophy exists in both the joy and terror of discoveringwho we are and who we might become....it is about finding out what is possible and singing a song about that...

we can become... all we have to do is understand that...I can become something better then I am today and thatsomething is to be found in the study of life of which philosophy is part of.....I have learned things about myself lately, at my advanceage of 58, that has surprised me and frankly, has brought shame to my heart, but that is part of the journey... not to learn safe and comfortablethings but to learn everything, not just the fun and safe stuff and thatsometimes leads us to feel shame and terror and joy about who we areand then who we can become, and that can bring us the same feelings of shame andterror and joy.... if we don't feel something about our journey, it isn't muchof a journey.....we are simply engaged in a very safe exploration of who we are...it is like thinking that traveling is going to a safe place and thinking you are reallytraveling, but real traveling is about stretching who you are by going beyondwhat is safe and going beyond your comfort zone... going to the local, nearby streetis safe and predictable, but going to some new country and going out of your comfortzone is really what traveling and philosophy is about the same thing... go beyondyour comfort zone and challenge yourself just like you would if you were traveling.....

safe and boring is Kant and Hegel, stretch who you are by engaging in Nietzsche or engage in your own exploration of who you are and challengewho you are and who you are becoming......

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

in my journey of being and becoming...I have discovered I have a mean streak a mile long...and that is my being... but do I simply accept that ordo I try to become, becoming, something better....

I can simply accept that I can be mean but that is nota choice, that is simply accepting or I can make a choice,which is freedom, choices means freedom, and I can choiceto become something better, which is not being mean and beingnicer and a kinder Kropotkin..... what I choose defines me as a person and I choose to be a nicer, kinder person....

so, I just have to practice being nice and being kind,every single day... and it will be hard because being is easier then trying to become something else,being is easier then becoming....so what route do I take?

the easy path of being or the hard path of becoming?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

now one might say, but Kropotkin, you are espousing new age nonsense or religion or utter nonsense or whatever you seem to be babbling about......

but the truth is.... it doesn't matter what we call it..

a journey is never about the destination, but about the trip, the journey....

the human journey is never about the end, the destination, which is death,but about the journey and it doesn't matter what we call death, be it death or non-existence or non-being or passed on or gone to a better place...it is about the journey we take before that final experience.....

so if after death and you could report your journey of life, what wouldyou want to be able to report back about your journey?

I did this or I was that or I traveled or I became this on my way to.....being or becoming? did you engage in simple being or did you engagedin becoming? which one would you rather report back to the living?

I was or I engaged in becoming?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

so, my "system" is one of order vs disorder....that which improves the order of the system is approved of and that which increases disorder is disapproved of...

we, each of us, exists in a series of systems, politically, economicallyand socially.....so in the political, that which improves the order of the system is approved of and that which increases the disorder is disapproved of...but does that "disapproval" include dissent? dissent does cause disorder within the society and so, theoretically mustbe disapproved of......

not at all, even if dissent does cause disorder within the society/system...dissent must be part and parcel of any political system, either officiallyor unofficially and it would be better if dissent were part of any political system officially.....if fact, it is the genius of the American political system that the use of dissent is officially protected bythe bill of rights....

the value of dissent is for what must be avoided at all cost, which is the natural conservatism of "people" to codify values and beliefs andactions.....values in fact, must be changeable and adaptable to to fit any new changes in society....values are meant to be of value toto serve the people in their pursuit of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" values are a tool, nothing more, and values must be flexible enough to enablepeople to navigate life...dissent is also a tool to help people navigate life...

occasionally we must dissent, to increase disorder to the overall benefit ofthe society to which we belong as benefitting society does benefit us personally...and occasionally, dissent is the means to improve society...the trick is to know when dissent is the answer and when it is not....this understanding of when dissent is needed and not needed is the understanding of political science...

I believe that this is the time for dissent for the forces of government are engaged in the acts of disorder, which is the exclusion of, the discrimination of, the refusal to integrate people within society....

laws that discriminate against people, laws that exclude people,that laws don't integrate people are acts of disorder against the benefit of society....and must have dissent against them....disorder....for to pursue laws against people and their valuesis really an act of nihilism... for that is nihilism, the negation of human values and negating human rights, negating people's right to act in their own interest is nihilism.....and being able to pursue one's own values within such values as tolerance,and respect and freedom to act is paramount.....

in other words....we must pursue justice and freedom as fundamental properties of a society... justice is the act ofequality and inclusion and freedom is the choices allowed....and any actions which deny justice or freedom must be fought....give dissent to.....

so laws which deny justice or freedom must have dissent as their response....we cannot codify any attempt todeny justice or freedom....we must fight, dissent in any attemptto legitimize denying justice or freedom....thus we have a course of action.... we allow voting rights, we allow abortions,we increase toleration and increase justice for all......freedom and justice is our template for actions as thatis the path to order in our political system....and anythingthat denies freedom and justice must have dissent as it consequences.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I want just mention Hegel who says, that philosophy is the conceptualization of one owns time. This is a way to concile the truth while being human and making Errors. The dissent culminates in critique. Philosophy is built in this way: making Errors which survive time by it s performative value.

Was thinking last night about existentialism and it's Understanding of angst, anxiety and despair. We have in opposition to or to combat angst, religion and philosophy and science. I have felt angst over the years and one way for me to deal was philosophy. The Greeks used philosophy as a way of life. It wasn't academic as we use philosophy but genuine means to finding a way of living. Each school, platonic, Stoic, Aristotle, epicurean ,was a way of life and understood to be such by everyone. The Christians took this idea from the Greeks and meant Christianity to be a way of life. So which ancient school best fit your way of life?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

So in my last post, I mentioned existentialism And I mentioned philosophy as a way of life......Now can we used existentialism as a way ofLife? To have anxiety and despair and angst as a way of life would get old, real fast....That is why existentialism failed as a way of life, it cannot exist as a way of life. So the one possibility for a way of lifein the last 150 years failed.....

So what are our options? Or is even finding a way of life not practical? The question of how we live our life found in finding aa way of life or is it something else?

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

This idea of, how is one to live, is not just an individual one, it has social, political, economic, cultural impact....Our individual decisions impact society...If I have a child, that impacts society...Every choice we make, leaves our footprint on society... so we must understand How we are to live, in a wider context, thatof how it impacts society. We live in a spider webwhere all parts of the web, society, is connected.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Peter Kropotkin wrote:This idea of, how is one to live, is not just an individual one, it has social, political, economic, cultural impact....Our individual decisions impact society...If I have a child, that impacts society...Every choice we make, leaves our footprint on society... so we must understand How we are to live, in a wider context, thatof how it impacts society. We live in a spider webwhere all parts of the web, society, is connected.

Kropotkin

Yes there is a web; it is holistic. The riddle of intentionality (Husserl) could be solved (Lévinas). It does mean that the constitution of some singular Event is mirrored within the whole. And the whole says to the singular: you are false if you restrict yourself to the singular. That's the definitive. And you are right, as a part of the whole. That's performative. So we can understand history: all instances have a self-understanding as truth, but in the course of history it is false. The performative binds the two perspectives.

As I have been on Vacation for the last week and a couple of days, I have a notebook full of thoughts and idea's......

So what does it mean to this question of "how to live one's life"in regards to say, patriotism? some here have made ill definedand ill conceived statements about patriotism....How standing for the flag is patriotism because it supportsthe military but that leaves the problem of why do themilitary stand? is it for themselves? No, the truth of the matteris that we stand for the values that this country represents....but that leaves a secondary problem.. .which values?

I stand for the values that the flag represents and what values are those?

It has been said, truth, justice and the American way of life....or perhaps it is freedom and honesty...that is part of the problem... our values have never been clearlydefined or stated...so what are patriotic values... I am sure the64 year old guy who shot up that festival last night felt he wasa super patriot and doing his patriotic duty.....and without anyclear values to point to, I can't say for sure if he was actually right....

so how are we to live?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Peter Kropotkin wrote:This idea of, how is one to live, is not just an individual one, it has social, political, economic, cultural impact....Our individual decisions impact society...If I have a child, that impacts society...Every choice we make, leaves our footprint on society... so we must understand How we are to live, in a wider context, thatof how it impacts society. We live in a spider webwhere all parts of the web, society, is connected.

Kropotkin

Yes there is a web; it is holistic. The riddle of intentionality (Husserl) could be solved (Lévinas). It does mean that the constitution of some singular Event is mirrored within the whole. And the whole says to the singular: you are false if you restrict yourself to the singular. That's the definitive. And you are right, as a part of the whole. That's performative. So we can understand history: all instances have a self-understanding as truth, but in the course of history it is false. The performative binds the two perspectives.

K: this statements leaves me with many questions for the simple reason, I have no ideawhat you said......note the language I use.... it is simple language of a simple man...which leaves me with a question I have had for a long time.... why the needfor such complicate language? why not simply say what you mean withoutall that gooblegook? for example, "That's performative" I have no idea what thatmeans and I shouldn't have to look up every word to understand what someonemeans.....I make it a point to keep my language simple and clear..I use language that any kid in high school might understand. I thinkthis language use is part of the failure of philosophy.... it very language meantto hide and confuse the actual thoughts involved....read Hegel or Kant,its unreadable crap designed to hide the fact that they are, Hegel and Kant,trying to pretend to be smarter then we are by using language we don't understand....its a game, nothing more....when reading Kant or Hegel, all I can think of is the old story of the emperor new clothes........with Kant and Hegel beingthe emperor......

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

system: is a regularly interacting or interdependent groupof items forming a unified whole. Every system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purposeand expressed in its functioning....

Holism: is the idea that systems emphasize the priority of the wholeover its parts....

the word system means "something to look at" you must havea very high visual gradient to have systematization... or so says wiki....

Boundaries: berries that define a system and distinguish it from othersystems in the environment.

Homeostasis: the tendency of a system to resist change and maintain status quo.

adaptation: the tendency of a system to make the changes neededto protect itself and grow to accomplish it goal...

Reciprocal transactions: circular interactions that systemsengage in such that they influence one another...

feedback loop: the process by which systems self-correct based on reactions from other systems in the environment..

Throughput: energy in the system to accomplish its goals..

these are the important ideas we need to understand to makesense of my next number of posts.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we have, for thousands of years attempted to define man/human beings....and we have failed... but why? why have we failed to understand man/human beings?

I believe its because we haven't put human beings into the proper context...we have isolated our thinking about who we are....in other words, we haven't seen ourselves in our rightful context...we look at ourselves as separate individuals with no context to our environment or what is going around us.....

I am Kropotkin...I am of medium height and built...I am older but still have my hair but its going gray...I am a liberal.... I watch baseball and basketball and hockeybut not football.

all these things are true about me, but they don't put me into a context....

I am a father and a husband, brother and son...now all of these things put me into a context becausethey place me into systems.....

systems as defined as a regularly interacting group...that is being a father and a husband and son and a brother...the family is one type of system....my family, my immediate family and my mother and brother and sisters are a system....and we fit into the terms I offered earlier...there is feedback and adaptation and homeostasis and all the other signs of a system....we will call this type of system as biological...a biological system....

we live on planet earth, the third planet from the sun,in a solar system with 8 planets.... this is by its very name,a system....think of our solar system, imagine as the planets revolve aroundthe sun...we are an open system which means, matter and energygo into and out of the system... just as a biological system is an opensystem and just as the family is an open system... matter and energy go into and out of the biological and solar system....the human bodyis also a system and a biological system which has matter and energygoing into and out of.....the solar system is an natural system...thus meaning it was created naturally by forces like gravity and the big bangand material like dust....

and then we have systems like a car engine... which is also an opensystem in which matter and energy passes into and out of...we call this type of system a mechanical system....

so far, we have three different types of systems, the body which is a biological system and the solar system which is a natural system and the enginewhich is a mechanical system...we have plenty of other systems but first let us understand these three systems......

all three operate as systems and can be defined as systems, the body, the solar system and the car engine....

the matter and energy used by each is different however....the input and output of each system, biological, natural and mechanical are different...now each of these systems operate within both larger and smaller systems...

the car engine for example, doesn't exist in isolation by itself,it has the other systems of the car also working to achieve itsgoal and that is the movement of the car toward some destination.....

the engine is part of a larger system, the electrical system for examplein a car and the input and output of the system called gas and carbonmonoxide for example helps the car achieve its goal of moving....

the car has its feedback loop and adaptation and homeostasis aspect...just like any system of which the engine is part of that system....

so the engine is part of a larger system... just like the body or the familyis part of a larger system

and the solar system is part of a larger system, the milky way galaxy....imagine the milky way galaxy as its revolves around in space and thentry to find our solar system in the midst of that milky way galaxy...you can't... but the solar system is part of that immensely largegalaxy and that milky way galaxy is part of a larger system, the localgroup of galaxies which is part of the Virgo Supercluster which is partof the Laniakea Supercluster...... each cluster gets bigger and bigger..and all of them part of larger system in which passes matter and energyand another component, which is gravity and gravity is why the solar systemis different then a biological or mechanical system.... so each system, be itnatural or biological or mechanical have slightly different aspects to it....but they are still systems, just as we humans are a system in our bodies....

so look out the window and see a tree or a bush, we tend to isolatethat tree or bush into a separate thing, whereas the tree or bush exists within a system, an ecosystem, in which the tree and the local systemsexchange matter and energy and support each other...so to properly understand a tree, you must understand the ecosystem around the treeand explain how the tree interacts with the local environment....to make sense of a tree....that is why we have failed in our understandingof the man/human being... we isolate the human being from the systems surroundingus.... we exist in many different systems... for example, we have the economic system, the political system, the social/society system and the cultural system, we have many more systems but let us understand thesesystem first.....after a short break.....to finish laundry...

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we have systems such as natural, the solar system, we have systems thatare biological, human beings, and we have mechanical, car engines..is this the complete list, hardly, we can go on naming systems until the cows come home, but I have my eye on other systems....

we have Kropotkin once again..a human being...who is a biological system unto himself butalso part of the larger biological systems that surroundshim...as mentioned earlier, we have trees which are part of theecosystem and so is Kropotkin.....I also exist within a natural system,being part of planet earth which is part of the solar system... so I exist within several different types of systems.....

now as far as any mechanical systems, I have a car and I wear a hearing aid and glasses. so I am engaged in mechanical systems and I use computers and cook dinnerand other such uses of mechanical systems....

as noted earlier, there are also systems that are of human construct...economic, political, social/society, cultural.. among others....I existwithin various aspects of these systems and I act and interactwith some more systems then other systems......

I mentioned I am a father and husband, so I interact with my wife andmy daughter all the time...I engage with that system many, many times a day....the family system.........as a family and individually, I/we interact with othersystems such as our economic, political, social/society, cultural systems.......I work so interact with other systems.... family, social, economic but not so muchpolitical....but the political does interact with me at work, the political systemdoes create rules and laws that affect me at work and I must work with.....a company is a system and it works with other companies which are theirown systems and each company works within an economic system.....think of growth of systems from human being to the planet to the solarsystem to the local group of stars to the galaxy to the local superclusterof galaxies to ever larger superclusters until we reach the universe.....the universe is just another system abet a very large system.....

recall those Hubble pictures of the universe with galaxies linedup as far as the eye can see and how do you find the milky wayin the midst of all those galaxies? our economic system is the sameway...once again with stand with Kropotkin, but this time at his checkstandringing up groceries and creating economic activity with every single transaction....withdraw a bit and see the company at large and my workget very, very small but it is still there being a part of the system,an open system which has matter and energy going into and out of the system.....then look at the even bigger picture of all retail business and my company, whichis a very, very large company becomes much smaller and I, Kropotkin, is no longer seen... my economic activity is very small indeed in the midst of all the retail activity within a county or a state or a country and then you add in not just retail activity,but all kinds of economic activity, all kinds of economic systems, that in the endadd up to the GNP, Gross National Product, which is a listing of all economic activity in the country of which I have a small, miniscule part of, as a worker, as a consumer, I also have a small, miniscule part of, but that is another partof the economic system, you have producers, and I exist as a worker in that aspectof the economic system and as a consumer, I buy things and that is part of the economic system and you can follow that line of consumers from the very small,Kropotkin and his system the family, to very large consumer actions, the governmentfor instance......

but we don't engage just with the economic, not as Marxists suppose,we deal with the political system also and we can follow that insame way, from Kropotkin to paying taxes to larger companies paying taxes,I wish, to larger and larger political activity in which we have the federal government....I vote every single election and that is part of my political engagement and that political engagement can be affectedby the economic and social/society and the cultural.....we exist within many different types of systems and sometimesit is hard to distinguish between the many different systems...is it the economic that is affecting us or is it the political or is it the social/society or the cultural system that is affectingus and sometime is it is more then one system that is affecting us and it makes it hard to understand and/or distinguish between the various systems.....many people blame the political system for their problems when in reality it is the economic systems thatthat are causing many of American issues......

but we cannot tell because it is so hard to break out the economic and the political from each other......

and where does little ole Kropotkin fit into all this?

that is the question.....

to understand one person, Kropotkin, you have to place him into context of the many, many different systems that he exists within....

so how am I to live? that is the question but how do we answer thatwithin so many different systems? how am I to live is different within the political and different within the economic and different withthe social and different within the cultural.....

and within each system we have the feedback loop and the adaptationaspect and the homeostasis aspect.....and within each larger system, wealso have those aspects but with every single increase in the system,the ability to create feedback and to adapt and to control the homeostasis gets harder......the larger the system, the harder eachof these aspects of a system becomes to interact......my feedback on a small, store level is greater then on a company level and much smaller on the entire retail level and so on.....this is one of the great problems withsystems, as they grow larger they no longer operate as systems should.....for a system to be successful, it must have a feedback loop and anadaptation and homeostasis aspect, but as our systems grow larger,these aspects become less able to engage within the system........I have a larger voice politically within my small city then I do withina state, politically and far less so within a country aspect.......

as the system grows larger, the systems that maintain the systemsbecome harder and harder to maintain those systems becauseof the fact they lose their ability to interact with the larger systems....

and we rest for a minute... for I have more to go....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we have a multitude of systems like there are galaxies in the sky...and like galaxies, the systems on earth not only cover height, depth,width but cover time... just like those pictures of the multitude of galaxies in pictures we see from the Hubble... how do we tell where wefit into such a large group of systems....when we can't even tell wherethe milky way system lies in a group of galaxies....little less our own little solar system.....this very size of everything keeps us from knowing wherewe are.... which leads us to the next problem.....

perhaps the greatest understanding of human nature occurred underMarx with his analysis of alienation....but how does this alienation occur? we have a multitude of systems, economic, political, social/society and cultural....and we can become alienated by the systems preventing usfrom actions such as our feedback loop and adaptation.... a system preventingus from giving our feedback leads to our alienation from the system....and we see this today, with millions of people being alienated from varioussystems including the economic, political, social, cultural...

now we can be alienated from one or more of these systems leading tonot only alienation but angst and anxiety and despair.....

I am clearly alienated from the economic system we have...and I can either learn to accept it or, or fight the system...I have chosen to fight....I am to a lessor degree, alienatedfrom the political and to an even lessor degree from the social/society...and I don't give a shit about the cultural, so I am not alienated from that.....and people are in various stages of acceptance or alienation of/fromthe various systems........how well do we fit into the varioussystems is a factor of alienation.... and we cannot fit into every single systembecause of the sheer number of systems we have, so on some level,everybody is alienated from one or two systems to many, many systems......and responses can be from taking guns and shooting at innocent people,a rather gutless and shameful action because guns and violence neversolve anything to feeling angst and anxiety and despair about oneself...much of our current problems stem from our alienation and anxiety from not being connected to our systems, not being part of the system and not allowing our input and feedback and adaptation to be acceptedby the system....we are uncomfortable with and shut out of our many systemsin which we belong to, be it economic, political, social/society and cultural.....the anger and frustration many feel comes from being shut out of our systems,not allowing system functions like feedback to allow the system to adapt tothe feelings of the people......we are shut out of many systems and that causesangst and anxiety and anger and despair and all the other feelings we have aswe become more and more alienated from those systems.....

and the question remains, given all of the above, how do I live my life?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we are members of and engage with many different systems, family,work, school, church, political to name a few and we engage in different degrees with each system..... now because of the differences between the system as the biological is different then the mechanical and is different from the natural, we each exist in different systems that are oftenin conflict and compete against each other and demands different thingsfrom us.... the family system wants/needs different things then the work system,which requires different things then the political system... we sometimes feel conflicted and anxious, suffer from angst because of the conflicting demands from the different systems.....

the work system we have, of capitalism is nihilistic.... it has no use for human values like love and hope and justice and negates thesevalues because these values don't create profit whereas the family system is all about these values of love and justice and hope...whereas love has no place in the political system but justice does...this is part of the modern problem whereas different systems demanddifferent values to be followed and different systems negate certain values.....

the family system wouldn't work with if everyone in any given family triedto extract profit from everyone else in the family...and the capitalistsystem wouldn't work if all it tried to get was love and cooperation fromeveryone... businesses often claim that their company treats its workerslike family....but that just isn't true as long as money/profit dominates the company.....

different systems, different objectives, different goals.....and individually, we have to sort out which systems objectives and goalsare worth our efforts and which one aren't.....

we are torn by and struggle with, each systems demands for loyalty and obedience.....

the modern world's is creating the angst and anxiety and despairin the people because we cannot hold true with every demand fromevery system... we just can't... if we don't hold true with the economic,we are fired and if we don't hold true with the political, we are jailedand if we don't hold true with the social, we are ostracize and if we don'thold true to the cultural, we are deemed irrelevant....

and we can't hold true to every system and every demand, so weare left with inner conflicts between the competing and conflictingsystems and their demands.....

how am I to live?

given the conflicting and competing demands of the various systems,that seems to be impossible... the only solution I see iswe align all the systems.... we have each system hold the same valuesas much as they can... so the economic is just as concerned with justiceas the political and we have all the various systems be concerned with loveand value life.... by having all the systems holding the same valuesthat we help remove the anxiety and angst of the modern world..we are no longer torn and conflicted by different, competing systemsand their different and competing values......

justice becomes a value throughout all systems, from the economic tothe political to the social to the cultural......love becomes a valuethrough all the systems, not just the family and religious systems.....

which leads us to our next point, holism....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

some last thoughts before I move onto holism and thatis that the battle between competing and conflicting values, or competing goods as defined by Barrett in his book, "The Irrational Man" as espoused by the different systems can be confusing......

but that is what we use philosophy for, to sort the competing claimsand find out if the truths they proclaim are valid claims.. thus the economic system claim that money/profits are the highest values to be pursued and the legal system that justice is the highest value tobe pursued.... this is the very role of philosophy, the understandingof values and science, the role of science is the understanding of facts....

they pursue different things, science and philosophy....

and we return to our topic at hand, holism...

holism emphasizes the priority of the whole of it parts....and every system does emphasize the priority of the whole over its parts...

look at the human body, that system....every single cell in the human bodyis replaced every 7 years, the parts are replaced and yet, we still hold to our body as existing whole since our birth.....we lose blood and replace bloodand yet we still hold that we are whole........the parts come and go and yet, we still believe ourselves to be a whole system....

the human race has existed for a million plus years and yet, parts of the human race,the individual parts of the human race have come and gone, many thousands of generations have come and gone since the beginning..... I too shall, at some point,die and leave the scene of the human beings existence and yet, the human raceshall go on, the system shall go on, regardless of whether or not I am here...the whole, the human race, shall go on, even as part, individual parts like me,shall come and go.. so the whole does have more priority over the parts and yet, and yet, the parts do have a role and a value within the whole...

we individual human beings, do have a role within the whole, the human race...the parts are just as important as the whole because without the parts, there is no whole.... the whole needs the parts and the parts need the whole....the individual cells of the human body need the whole, the human body needs the individual cells just as much.. the whole needs the part and the parts needs the whole........

as we need both, we need to begin to emphasize both, the whole as well as the parts.....

the economic system of capitalism is a whole system which depends on its parts, theworker and the consumer to survive, the parts the worker and the consumer needthe whole, the economic system to survive, also and this is important, the economic system doesn't have to be capitalism......the human race has had 8 economic systems since the beginning of existenceand we can replace economic systems before we can replace the parts,the individual parts that make up the system.........

so think about what economic system best fits the values of the human being....or the best political system that best fits the values of human beings.....instead of making human beings try to fit their values into the system,try to make the systems fit the values of the human beings.....make the systems fit the values of human beings instead of the otherway around......

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

The whole and it s parts. Two interpretations: the whole determines the parts like the Führer in the third Reich. Or it opens us, as the organic philosophy of Whitehead. Perhaps that is the difference between monads in Leibniz and Husserl. Leibniz: monads preestablished harmony without communication. Husserl: Communication is possible.

in doing my research, I notice that Newton considered space and time,to be absolute and in his "Mathematica" used math to make a detailed understanding of the natural world... his math allowed us to make predictionsand understand how motion of the earth and the solar system worked...and he based all this on his idea of absolute space and time...

Now Einstein found space and time to be relative and used math to make a detailed understanding of the world... His, Einstein, mathallowed us to make predictions and understand how the motion of the earthand the solar system worked and he based all this on his idea of relative space and time....

Einstein and Newton began in different places, one believed in absolutespace and time and the other did not and yet, both were able to use math to make accurate predictions in the motion of the universe.....

it says something interesting that beginning in different places, absolutespace and time and relative space and time, that they arrived at the same place....and in doing so, were able to make accurate predictions about our universe.....

perhaps our universe is far more flexible then we think.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Brando wrote:The whole and it s parts. Two interpretations: the whole determines the parts like the Führer in the third Reich. Or it opens us, as the organic philosophy of Whitehead. Perhaps that is the difference between monads in Leibniz and Husserl. Leibniz: monads preestablished harmony without communication. Husserl: Communication is possible.

K: the interesting thing to note is the whole and the parts are all made of the same thing.... we are made of star matter and starmatter is us.... everything in the universe is made up of matter, atoms,that has been recycled over and over and over again over 14 billion years...

the whole and the parts are made of the same thing....thus we have a connection of being the same thing...and this we must understand...all matter was created fromthe same stuff right at the beginning of time, the big bang....like brothers and sisters having a connection or other family membershaving a connection, we have the same connection with everythingin the universe....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

as I engage in my research in the 17 and 18 century philosophy,one question dominates that era, basically from Descartes to Hume,and that question is the question of human knowledge, its scope and limits...Locke from example could have named his "Essay concerning Human understanding"...as "Human Knowledge: its scope and limits... and that was a major question ofthe time and yet, today we pay little attention to this idea of the scope and limit of human knowledge, why? because it is not our question..it is not the question of our time... and every age, every era, every timeperiod has its own questions....so, if the scope and limit of human knowledge is not our question, then what is? what question drives our age, our time?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Knowledge is about relations, relationships....for example, take a tree....look at that tree... can you make any sense of,or get knowledge of that tree by just looking at it..No, you have to understand the relationships that the treehas... for example, what is the relationship between the tree branches and the trunk of the tree? or the relationship betweenthe ground the tree sits upon and the tree leaves? Knowing therelationship between the various aspects of the tree and other aspects,we can have knowledge about the tree...the tree is a living thing that connects with the air, earth, water and the relationship that the tree has with air is...and the relationship the tree has with the earth is.... and the relationshipthe tree has with water is....and we gain knowledge of the tree by itsrelationships with other matter....you cannot understand the human beingwithout understanding our relationships with other matter....

set 5 people in a room... not what is the relationship between them? the understanding of the relationship between those 5 people tells usinformation/knowledge about those 5 people... they could be 5 randompeople in which we need to better understand the relationshipbetween the 5 to have knowledge about them... but if the 5 peopleare related, say a family, then we have knowledge about those 5 people....

Knowledge/information is about the relationship between things....take gravity for example, we don't understand its relationships tothe other forces, thus we lack knowledge/information about gravity...this information/knowledge is related to our senses...we use our senses to make connections between objects and their relationships... as we lack the senses to understanding the various relationships of gravity, wecan't make any connection between gravity and the other forces...once we have the senses to fully grasp the relationship betweengravity and the other forces, we will have knowledge/information aboutgravity....tools such as the telescope are a means of extending our senses to include those details that we cannot see with our basic senses, vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste....tools extend our senses to help us understand the relationshipsof things like gravity and the human being and space and the earth and......

mathematics is simply a tool designed to help us understandthe relationship between numbers...and the relationship betweenobjects and us.....and objects and other objects....

Knowledge/information is simply about finding out about the the relationships between objectsas we extend our tools/senses, we shall be able to increaseour knowledge/information about the universe......as long as we continue to make connections about relationshipsbetween objects and us.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"